Just Us
by chrissie0707
Summary: Tag for 15X03 "The Rupture." Somewhere in the midst of all this free will-having, apocalypse-averting winning, they've lost just about everything - everyone - they had left. But maybe that's how it's meant to be. Just them.


_Author Notes: Wasssssssssssup? First tag of the season. Nothing earth-shattering; just some dot-connecting and added angst to the end of the ep. Like we were lacking in the heartache department after the massacre that was "The Rupture." :P _

_I will attempt to be less absent as the season goes on. Hopefully I get some good material that provokes taggy thoughts, and I also have a couple half-finished stories sitting in the computer. It IS Nanowrimo once more, so a lot of my writerly attention is being diverted to my WIP novel. I also (possibly) have THREE different writing competitions this month. I did get an acceptance email over the weekend for a flash mystery story I'd sent in for online publication, so that's pretty exciting. :D_

_Thanks for stopping by!_

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**Just Us**

He wakes in stages, in a slow, gauzy dissolve from a restless, dreamless sleep that might have lasted five hours or five minutes. And then he just lies there, unmoving, in the cool, dark room, breathing in tandem with the dull throb of his shoulder.

For the first time in a long time, Sam feels the chill that comes with being underground, removed from the rest of the world, a cut-off feeling compounded by the unanticipated weight in his chest. The grief has caught up with him. For Rowena, sure, especially considering the part he played. For Jack. Maybe even for Ketch. Guy was a bastard, but he'd become an ally, and keeping Dean alive in that apocalypse world went a long way toward earning him brownie points.

But the sorrow that's put an ache in the back of his throat and has him thinking he might never get out of this bed again is for his mother. Grief that's been postponed, pushed aside in the heat of the moment, which makes the pain that much worse. So damn much has happened since she died, a nonstop avalanche of catastrophe topped off with an _apocalypse, _but really, it's been _days._ Mom was just the first domino in the line; the losses are piling on, too quickly to deal with, and Sam is feeling suffocated.

He shifts heavy-feeling limbs, ratcheting up the stab in his shoulder. The pain helps to clear some of the fug around his head, and Sam thinks of his brother. He can only imagine how hard this delayed grief is hitting Dean, how badly he's handling it. And, a bit selfishly, how much he just wants to spend time with his big brother. This isn't one of those times they'll benefit from retreating to separate corners to deal with the mental and emotional fallout of what they've just been through.

Sam drags himself from bed and rotates his wounded shoulder, working out the lingering stiffness. He pulls on a clean shirt, runs his fingers through his hair, and shuffles out of his room in search of his brother.

He goes first to Dean's room, but he isn't there and the bed doesn't appear slept in. In fact, the entire space seems untouched, in a concerning way. All they'd wanted was to beat this, to end the fight with their free will intact and get back home to start living without Chuck's influence or puppet strings. But it wouldn't be out of character for Dean to resist settling back in, because that would mean accepting that it _is _over. That sort of acceptance would bring put a frightening, final period on the losses they took along the way. Sam knows, because it's exactly what he's dealing with himself.

His posture is unnaturally rigid as he navigates the halls in the direction of the main areas of the bunker, his skin crawling with unease. He hears water dripping from a faucet down the hall, the soft whir of the ventilation system overhead. Small, relatively insignificant noises that Sam hasn't noticed in, hell, years. Everything feels _wrong_, a pervasive strangeness he can't quite place, or name. He crosses the library, slowing his pace enough to trail fingertips across the engraved letters on the tabletop.

He finally finds Dean in the kitchen. He's wearing the same shirt Sam last saw him in, sitting a bit too still and a bit too straight, with a faraway, but not unexpected, look in his eyes. The coffee is on, but his brother has a mostly full beer nestled between his hands. At eight in the morning. _Breakfast of champions. _

He raises his eyebrows as Sam enters the room and runs a hand over his eyes, almost like donning a mask. "Hey. You get any sleep?"

"Uh, a little. I think." Sam moves to the coffee, grabs a mug. He's pretty sure he knows the answer but asks anyway. "How about you?"

His brother shrugs, a motion that doesn't come with much truth or eye contact. "How's the, uh…" Dean gestures to his own upper arm.

That damn hole in Sam's shoulder throbs right on cue, like an echo of the initial impact, a pulled shot that should have killed him. Should have killed Chuck, too. But he can't change that now any more than he can bring back Mom back, or Jack. He grits his teeth and pours a cup of coffee that's no longer steaming. "It's fine."

Dean bobs his head in that slow, deliberate way that means he doesn't believe him, but he's also not going to push the issue. He looks away and pulls from his beer, leaving a void in the conversation he's unwilling – or unable – to fill.

Sam knows his brother is hurting. He _knows _it. But Dean deals with his pain and grief in his own way, and he won't show it. Won't let it get the best of him. He looks up at Sam, gaze steady and…

And Sam thinks of the name for it then, the word that's been eluding him since he woke. Empty. The halls of the bunker, the rooms, are _empty _in a way they haven't been in years. Unoccupied by displaced hunters, Mom, Jack.

It's just them.

He frowns, drops his gaze to the brew in his cup. "Where's Cas?"

Another blank stare. "Gone." Another long pull, finishing off the bottle.

The finality in Dean's tone doesn't invite questions or expansion, so Sam just nods tightly. He takes a moment to digest the information, to absorb the sting of Cas leaving without saying goodbye. He figures the angel didn't take off entirely on his own, but Sam can't say he fully blames his brother for whatever push out the door he gave Cas. There are some lines that can't be uncrossed. Some things that can't be forgiven.

Mom's death isn't Castiel's doing, but he _knew _something was wrong with Jack. Maybe they could have stopped the kid before things got that far, if they'd just known there was something that needed stopping. By not telling them about Jack, Cas put all of them at risk. It could have just as easily been Sam or Dean who was caught in the crossfire. But somehow, as always, this was the worst possible way things could have played out.

Dean can't seem to take the oppressive silence any longer, pushes up from the table and crosses to the cooler to pull out a fresh beer. He closes the door and leans against it, scrubs a palm across the back of his neck. "How you doin'?" he asks. "After…"

Sam glances at his watch, confirms it's been a whole ten hours since his brother last asked. He sighs. "I'm fine, Dean."

Another bob of the head, a _schink _as Dean opens the bottle. "Right." He tosses the bottlecap to the counter.

_Right._ Sam's fine, just like Dean is _obviously_ fine.

This is the first real morning of their hard-won freedom from a life of being Chuck's playthings, and Sam hasn't experienced much beyond loneliness and loss. _Emptiness. _His brother, clearly, isn't faring any better. Dean might be standing mere feet away, but he's hardly _here_, well into his own alcohol-infused spiral of anger, guilt, and grief.

His brother's expression is a blank canvas waiting to be painted over with whatever he needs to be to put one foot in front of the other. They'll find a hunt. Or, Dean will. Probably soon. Because he'll need to _do something_, and even though Chuck is gone and they sidestepped another apocalypse, they're hunters.

Team Free Will, down to two.

Was killing Rowena exercising his free will? Or had Sam simply stepped directly into one decided future in his desperation to escape another? Chuck's stories, Death's prophecies…what's the difference? Rowena's dead by his hand, just like she said she'd be. He could have refused to do it, but she knew exactly what to say.

_Will you let the world die, let your brother die, just so I can live?_

Castiel is the one who went off-book. His free will might have cost Sam his own.

Dean clears his throat noisily, and Sam snaps out of it. He opens his mouth, maybe meaning to ask, _what do we do now? _His brother doesn't give him the chance.

"Well, I'm gonna…" He gestures toward the hallway, drawing away from the cooler door.

Sam nods and steps farther into the kitchen, giving his brother a wide berth on his way out of the room. He stays there, staring into his coffee, listening to the too-loud echoes of Dean's footsteps as they move down the empty hall.

_What do we do now?_

He knows the next time he sees his brother, Dean will be laughing, and probably cramming an ungodly amount of bacon into his mouth. He'll tell jokes that aren't funny, but Sam will laugh anyway, because that's what they'll both need. He knows the next time he sees his brother, Dean will act like nothing has happened and no one has died and no one has left. He'll have a case picked out, something clear across the country, probably, so he can clear his head with a long road trip and they can fall back into the routine of hunting, just the two of them.

They were supposed to be nearing the end of this life. He'd dared to hope. They'd _both _dared to hope. Jack was supposed to be a second chance, the missing piece they didn't know they were missing.

_You talking about retiring? You?_

_If I knew the world was safe? Hell, yeah. And you know why? 'Cause we freaking earned it._

Jack allowed then to hope for a fresh start. But that was before they lost him and Mom, and now Cas. That was before Michael, who maybe took something from his brother that Dean won't ever really get back. His peace of mind.

_You, me, Cas, toes in the sand, couple of them little umbrella drinks. Matching Hawaiian shirts, obviously._

That was never going to be their life, their future.

Sam ventures back into the hallway almost in a daze. He stops again at the table in the library where they'd carved their initials and left their mark, where he'd added Mom's after she died.

That's their legacy.

Somewhere in the midst of all this free will-having, apocalypse-averting winning, they've lost just about everything – _everyone_ – they had left. But maybe that's how it's meant to be. Just them.

"It's just us," he says softly, testing it out. The words ring hollow, lacking the relief, the optimism he'd felt outside the high school. He's spent the last decade, longer, in a perpetual state of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Even if Chuck is truly out of the picture, he can't help feeling like there's at least one more shoe waiting, dangling precariously over his head. And this time…

Sam taps his fingers on the tabletop and squares his shoulders. "It's just us," he repeats, resigned to let that mean whatever it will.

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_Edited after seeing the sneak peek for 15X04 - #nailedit. Sort of. Dean was eating a bunch of bacon. :P_


End file.
